When a fire claims one of their own, there's plenty of guilt and blame to go around. Lt. Matthew Casey, in charge of the Truck, tries to carry on, but butts heads with the brash Lt. Kelly Severide of the Rescue Squad - and each blames the other for their fallen team member. The firehouse also includes: Battalion Chief Wallace Boden, a fireman's fireman who is confronted by important personal decisions; paramedics Gabriela Dawson and Leslie Shay, who share a close bond and team together to face some of the most harrowing situations imaginable; Peter Mills, an academy graduate who is the latest generation in a family of firefighters; and Christopher Herrmann, a seasoned veteran who loses his home to foreclosure and now must uproot his family to move in with his in-laws.

David Wiegand

Wolf either doesn't know what to do with his characters while they're waiting around for a fire to break out, or thinks their personal stories should be the dominant element in his new series. They could be, if only those stories weren't ripped from the book of overused cliches.

Neil Genzlinger

Matt Roush

Chicago Fire isn't half bad when the fires and other crises take over as the star of the show. It's after the smoke clears and the stories kick back in that you begin to realize the only way to salvage these sorry stereotypes in uniform is to burn them the only way we know how.

Rob Owen

Dorothy Rabinowitz

There didn't seem to be anything like [a plot] for the first two episodes, though there has been no lack of good looks, with Taylor Kinney and Jesse Spencer around and filling out their firemen togs nicely. Still there's hope. In episode three, to be exact, where we find a hint that the writers have caught on to the uses of a story line, this about a corrupt police detective.

Mark A. Perigard

Hank Stuever

Everyone here, including "Oz's" Eamonn Walker as the battalion chief, is working from the same medium-grim setting, with medium-grim dialogue, which quickly drags the story and action into the still-smoldering ruins of other fire-and-rescue dramas.

Ed Bark

Robert Lloyd

In a world without cable dramas, Chicago Fire would be considered television at its more compelling and realistic. As it is, it walks the line between shameless entertainment--hot guys, hot girls, the fires within, the fires without--and intelligent storytelling.